blog

It’s the silent, unseen threat to Australian agriculture that costs farm businesses millions of dollars a year and is indiscriminate in the industries it strikes. Spray drift is unfortunately an ongoing threat to agriculture and one farmer on the receiving end of the devastation can do little to combat. At the same time, the application of pesticides remains vital to many ag sectors to maximise ...
Continue reading

When this year’s Federal Budget was handed down in May, one of the announcements that attracted attention was the allocation of $200 million over four years for a National Soil Strategy. The Strategy establishes a framework for how our nation will value, manage and improve its soil for the next 20 years, setting out three main goals around prioritising soil health, encouraging innovation and ...
Continue reading

Regional living is now officially ‘cool’. Of course, this isn’t news to those of us who already call our towns and regional cities home. We’ve always appreciated the benefits of a regional address and wondered why everyone couldn’t see the appeal. But now it seems the secret’s out and our city cousins are making the move in greater numbers than ever. The pandemic has caused many of us to ...
Continue reading

Mental health services, the push to grow the nation’s agriculture workforce and infrastructure spending are among the wins for rural and regional Australia from Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s third budget. Seftons’ Managing Director Robbie Sefton said delivering a budget during the current pandemic crisis was always going to be a challenging task, but she was happy to see the focus remain ...
Continue reading

There’s an old joke that goes something like this and the punch line is one that should resonate with all farmers and anyone interested in a changing climate. What happens when you cross an Irishman with a Scotsman? You get someone who likes to drink, but doesn’t want to pay for it. That same odd-couple combo also applies to Australian consumers when it comes to food production; especially ...
Continue reading

WHEN it comes to implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in Australia, we can’t afford to make any dumb moves; especially resorting to complacency or navel gazing. But if we’re smart and savvy and think strategically, to act on a bold vision, it’ll ensure we optimise future benefits of the AI revolution; especially making Australian farmers and agribusiness more efficient ...
Continue reading

LET’S face it – there’s very little to get truly excited about in the news media these days. If it’s not a story about the Coronavirus pandemic, or the latest political or Royal scandal, or an sporting player’s off-field antics, then it’s likely to be about droughts, floods, bush-fires or some other looming natural catastrophe. Amid this seemingly constant environment of conflict and ...
Continue reading

More than anything, the current clash between Facebook and the Australian Government represents an ideal opportunity for agriculturalists and rural communities to stop, think and rediscover how we all individually interact with social media, both personally and professionally. Firstly, being blocked from sharing news articles with your friends and contacts via Facebook isn’t the end of the ...
Continue reading

I’d like to pause for a moment to reflect on the recent Australian of the Year Awards; especially the strong values, deep sense of personal purpose and achievements shared by each of the winners, which we as Australians can all be proud of. Firstly, as the Deputy Chair of the National Australia Day Council Board, and as a Board member since 2010, I’ve been fortunate to observe the ...
Continue reading

NSW Minister of Agriculture, Adam Marshall with the states first Agriculture Commissioner Daryl Quinlivan at a Coffs Harbour banana farm. Photo: NSW DPI. Image credit - The Land I’m looking forward to seeing how newly appointed NSW Agricultural Commissioner Daryl Quinlivan can deliver positive outcomes through this first-time role. Daryl took up the challenge in August and recently outlined ...
Continue reading

Veteran Western Australian journalist Ken Wilson’s recent retirement, after 54 years in the saddle, including 42 as an agricultural reporter, has prompted me to open-up an important discussion about the accumulation of knowledge in our industry. Not just how this knowledge is harvested, but also how it’s shared and how it can be applied. But before going further into these observations, ...
Continue reading

Recently I read an inspiring article by demographer, author and newspaper columnist Bernard Salt and felt compelled to share my thoughts and feelings about it. I’ve read a few of Bernard’s books and always find his writing style to be open, energising, encouraging and empathetic. When it comes to the nation’s mood, his finger is firmly on the pulse and his words also demonstrate great ...
Continue reading

Robbie Sefton believes more people need to come out and declare that a typical Australian farmer is a young, enterprising woman defined by their unyielding passion. Image credit - The Land When we think about what makes Australian farmers tick, typical characteristics spring to mind such as; hard-working, resilient, stoic, patient and enduring. We think about our farmers as being humble, ...
Continue reading

Royal Shows are integral to the fabric of regional communities and do so much, not only for agriculture, but for the community in general. Image credit - The Land There’s nothing quite like that magical feeling you get after handing over your ticket and walking through the gates, at the annual Agricultural Royal Show. After 12-months of anticipation, those first few steps seem surreal ...
Continue reading

From little things big things grow. And there’s no better living example of this saying than the incredible results achieved by the Better Internet for Rural, Regional and Remote Australia (BIRRR) group – founded by two young women from the bush who wanted to fix a problem. A big problem. What started as determined team of volunteers six years ago has now evolved into a professional service ...
Continue reading

The Centre for the Study of Agribusiness (CSA) at Marcus Oldham College is proud to present, Marcus Oldham AgTalk. Hosted by the director of the CSA, David Cornish. Why do farmers need to care about social license? With Robbie Sefton ...
Continue reading

As someone who grew up on an irrigation farm in southern New South Wales and now runs a dryland farm in northern New South Wales, I have always been proud to live and work in rural and regional Australia, and to call the Basin home. I recently had the honour of Chairing the Independent Panel assessing the social and economic impacts of water reform on Basin communities. The Panel undertook ...
Continue reading

Australian agriculture has a goal: to generate $100 billion in farm gate output by 2030. Getting there is going to take all the resourcefulness we've got, especially if the effects are to carry well beyond 2030. Laid out in 2017 by the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF), with the support of its members, the ambitious 2030 Roadmap requires that we up the ante of every aspect of agriculture – not ...
Continue reading

We've heard a lot about rural industries’ "social licence" over the past few years. What is it, actually? In a word, it is trust. It is the community trusting that farmers, fishers and foresters share broader social values on matters like environmental stewardship, animal welfare and water resources. When trusted, primary producers and their supply chains are largely left alone to pursue ...
Continue reading

Most of us of a certain age will have known or heard of someone born when wool and grain was carried from farm to railhead, or to port, on bullock drays. We’ve probably all seen vintage photos in country pubs proudly displaying magnificent teams of bullocks heaving burgeoning wool bales on a well-worn dray through boggy black soils on a nearby dirt road. In the century-plus since, we’ve been ...
Continue reading

America’s founders thought that the freedom of the press was so important that they enshrined it in the republic’s constitution. In Australia, we also make much ado about press freedom as an essential underpinning of democracy – but what happens when there is no press? That’s what we’re seeing in rural and regional Australia, as the lights of small newspapers blink out one by one. The ...
Continue reading

If nothing else, COVID-19 has reinforced the immense value of digital capability. Many businesses – including mine – were able to switch almost seamlessly from physical offices to online meetings and communication. My business has been operating as a ‘remote’ business model for 25 years, but as urban Australian’s catch up, I think that we as a nation have had time to adjust to working from ...
Continue reading

If we take anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it might be that nothing worthwhile happens without collaboration and its inseparable twin, compromise. There has been a growing tendency to sideline these sensible approaches to problem-solving in Australia's public debates, and to instead win battles through political strength and favour. Human history repeatedly shows where this tactic takes ...
Continue reading

It’s been 6 weeks since COVID-19 started to change the business landscape. Most organisations successfully communicated the impact of those changes to their customers, and the lucky ones are getting on with the “new” business-as-usual. But the dialogue shouldn’t stop there. As humans we communicate to inform, educate, reassure and maintain relationships. In business we do all of the same ...
Continue reading

Image credit - https://www.business2community.com/ In 2004, the phrase "Life comes at you fast" was a clever tagline for US insurance company Nationwide. In 2020, it has become a meme for our times. Few of us are comfortable with uncertainty, but our certainties are built on human expectations that things will track a certain way. The real world, as the past month has shown, deals in ...
Continue reading

It is now certain that the global economy will be completely changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The nature of those changes are wholly uncertain, except that there is likely to be extensive short-term damage to agricultural markets. Fortunately, food and fibre production are the most essential of essential services, and so agriculture will endure over the long term. But in what form? Hopefully, ...
Continue reading

Importance of a compelling story makes journalism and PR closer than we think The worlds of journalism and public relations are either close relations or worlds apart – depends on who you ask. Coming from one industry to another, I can say both statements are probably true, depending on whether you focus on the similarities, or the many differences. From journalist to public relations ...
Continue reading

Image credit - AAP Image/Lukas Coch via REUTERS Rural and regional Australians are confronting significant social and economic challenges amid the ravages of a dramatically severe bushfire season, compounded by one of the worst-ever droughts. Understandably, these disasters have attracted relentless media attention, with constant up-close commentary of every iteration and angle. This ...
Continue reading

Robbie Sefton says the success of prominent figures from the bush prove you can become anything you want, by working hard and backing your talents. JAN Logan’s success story is an inspiration to all Australians; not just those from the regions. Just like other accomplished entrepreneurs, an abundance of self-motivation, passion and creativity underscored Jan’s risk-taking journey, ...
Continue reading

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott says we must unleash the potential of our people and places across the whole of the country. Image credit - The Land There is a lot of well-documented frustration in regional Australia, where some regions feel they have been bypassed in the nation’s prosperity push. The statistics don’t look all that encouraging, either: of the ...
Continue reading